Rating: 
Summary: The Essential Difference?
Review: Simon Baron-Cohen's book title is probably intended to be provocative; after all, he promises to tell us the truth about the female and male brains. Alas, he fails to deliver, although in this he is no more to be blamed than anyone else trying to prove essential differences between the sexes at the current state of knowledge in genetics.Baron-Cohen's essentialist argument consists of two chapters in the book; one on evolutionary theory and another on biology. He himself begins the evolutionary theory chapter by noting that he is going to "speculate", so it would be unfair to address this speculation, except to note that his view of prehistory does not seem to have women do gathering or work with tools. The chapter on biology discusses many sex differences in rats, monkeys and humans, but, unfortunately fails to provide any genetic evidence on the two characteristics the book discusses: emphatizing and systemizing. So we must still wait with bated breath for the actual evidence of essentialist sex differences in empathy and systemizing. Baron-Cohen's last chapter discusses his model in greater detail and speculates about the possibility that an 'extreme female brain' might exist, to correspond to his 'extreme male brain'. He is so concerned about the possible existence of such an extreme female brain that he notes in his conclusions: "Society at present is likely to be biased toward accepting the extreme female brain and stigmatizes the extreme male brain." Slightly odd, I would think, considering that the former type of person is as yet unknown. The Appendices 2 and 3 contain a test the reader can take to find out his or her type. Unfortunately, many of the questions in the S section are biased. As an example, consider Q7: "If there was a problem with the electrical wiring in my home, I'd be able to fix it myself." What if it was replaced by: "If there was a problem with a broken zipper in my pants, I'd be able to fix it myself?" Would women suddenly look more systemizing? I suspect so. It is also noteworthy that ten years ago I couldn't fix electricity whereas now I can. Has my systemizing talent increased? I was concerned by the book's assumption that girls and women don't collect things. But they do, witness the groups at any flea market or car booth sale. It will be interesting to see how that could be incorporated into the story. It will also be interesting to see the self-test results after the questions have been corrected.
Rating: 
Summary: Ask any married person
Review: Simply put. No need to bring this subject into the lab for analysing by psychologists and medical detectives. Just ask any man who has been married for several years to seperate the differences in the thought process of women and you will find the answers. Ask any woman who has been married for a number of years and she will reveal the differences. No need for monkeys or rats. By the way females are deadly afraid of rats.
Rating:
Summary: Ask any married person
Review: Simply put. No need to bring this subject into the lab for analysing by psychologists and medical detectives. Just ask any man who has been married for several years to seperate the differences in the thought process of women and you will find the answers. Ask any woman who has been married for a number of years and she will reveal the differences. No need for monkeys or rats. By the way females are deadly afraid of rats.
Rating:
Summary: Almost four stars...
Review: The book started off too slow stating, and re-stating, the obvious (girls are more sensitive to babies, boys play rough, etc.). Actually I think the whole "essential" difference discussed is pretty self-evident to most adults (in general girls empathize more, boys systemize more).
What I was looking for is information on how/why this happened (covered somewhat), case examples (men covered very well), and information on how to deal with it in some cases.
I think this book was recommended to me for the wrong reasons for ~my~ purposes. So it's not fair to me to be too harsh..
The book was very well written, entertaining and enlightening (case examples especially), and the appendices were interesting (tests). The referenced names provided other resources that were useful.
The 'almost' part of my review is that I felt the book cut-off a bit too promptly and didn't try to expound on conditions of extreme-E with women. As the author notes, it's quite possilbe that extreme-E isn't as disabling in society as e-S (makes sense) but ~any~ data couldn't helped me better understand what I see sometimes.
Worth a trip to the library at the very least. -Ali
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting perspective!
Review: This book makes an interesting journey from the research on male-female brain differences to a model of autism. The author suggests that autism reflects an "extreme male" brain. Although it is readily emphasized that there are significant differences within people of each gender, it is suggested that while females on the average have greater levels of empathy, males tend to have stronger "systematizing" abilities. It is suggested that autism can be understood as a combination of very high levels of systematization coupled with low levels of empathy. The book cites a large number of studies of brain physiology and behavior to illustrate the phenomena discussed. This discussion is coupled with strong cautions against stereotyping and a recognition of individual differences. Ironically, the main part of the book--the chapter explicitly develops the thesis of autism as a reflection of an "extreme male" brain--is a bit on the skimpy side, but this is understandable given that previous chapters have alluded to what is to come. The appendices to this book are a real treasure! Included are photos that serve as a test of one's ability to recognize the emotions expressed by a person's eyes and a number of scales that can be used to measure empathy levels and other relevant characteristics. This book is very readable and is punctuated with a nice sense of humor.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting perspective!
Review: This book makes an interesting journey from the research on male-female brain differences to a model of autism. The author suggests that autism reflects an "extreme male" brain. Although it is readily emphasized that there are significant differences within people of each gender, it is suggested that while females on the average have greater levels of empathy, males tend to have stronger "systematizing" abilities. It is suggested that autism can be understood as a combination of very high levels of systematization coupled with low levels of empathy. The book cites a large number of studies of brain physiology and behavior to illustrate the phenomena discussed. This discussion is coupled with strong cautions against stereotyping and a recognition of individual differences. Ironically, the main part of the book--the chapter explicitly develops the thesis of autism as a reflection of an "extreme male" brain--is a bit on the skimpy side, but this is understandable given that previous chapters have alluded to what is to come. The appendices to this book are a real treasure! Included are photos that serve as a test of one's ability to recognize the emotions expressed by a person's eyes and a number of scales that can be used to measure empathy levels and other relevant characteristics. This book is very readable and is punctuated with a nice sense of humor.
Rating:
Summary: At Last Some Answers
Review: To the majority of the human race that struggles to understand and communicate with the opposite sex, Baron-Cohen provides somes intriguing insights and conclusions into the traits of male/female brain construction and chemistry in terms of systemizing, aggression, empathy and nuturing. He states that he would not release this book in the 90's due to its politically sensitive nature, but now feels humanity is ready to accept these findings,many of which are case studies conducted by himself and his research team at Cambridge University. Of special interest are his findings on testosterone and estrogen levels in fetal development, and the subsequent prediction of infant and toddler behavior. He also describes
parallels between the brain construction of highly empathetic women and homosexuals, and includes a short section on the almost telepathic qualities of highly empathetic individuals. His chapter on evolution points to the rise of the aggressive or "alpha" male through thousands of years of polygeny, and feels that this is manifesting itself in the rising incidence of males with Asperger's Syndrome, which
he feels is a manifestation of the "extreme" male or systemizing brain. He predicts a concurrent rise of the "extreme" female, or highly empathetic brain, which at this point in humanity's evolution is not as evident as the male counterpart mentioned above. Although he is quick to point out that we should not stereotype, and many males or females have characteristics of either extreme,with some being quite balanced, his findings show concrete evidence of strong inherent behavioral differences between the sexes . He concludes the book with four appendixes, which are self-administered tests enabling readers to get a general idea where they lie on empathy, systemizing and autistic spectrum scales. A must read for anyone struggling to understand the opposite sex.
Rating: 
Summary: Sexism gets in the way of both Reviews and Book
Review: Too many critics of "Essential Difference" harp on the phrases "male" and "female" brains, but the author is the one responsible for this unusefully divisive terminology. Substitute "systematic" or analytic, and "empathetic" or relational, for 'male' and 'female.' Now the book's research makes perfect sense. It's not that men don't relate, or that women don't analyze. Though we do know people who fit those descriptions, some of them switch those gender designations! Even the author doesn't propose some artificial division between sexual tendencies. It's more like an 'essential' starting point to understand the sexes. Perhaps what's missing is the relationship between analysis and relation in the brain (or 'IQ' and 'Emotional Intelligence' in the mind). (The author thus is too analytical, too 'male'!) Is it like yin and yang (we all have both *sexual* tendencies in our body, but in different proportions)? Is one tendency especially useful to the real-world work of one sex? How about the other one? Can culture exaggerate one characteristic? Can education remedy an imbalance? (The answer is 'yes.') This debate loses utility when it gets construed as 'nature vs. nurture,' genetics vs. culture. Neither would matter without the human agent who chooses which words to use or to criticize, or how to analyze the problem and how to build consensus.
Rating:
Summary: Sexism gets in the way of both Reviews and Book
Review: Too many critics of "Essential Difference" harp on the phrases "male" and "female" brains, but the author is the one responsible for this unusefully divisive terminology. Substitute "systematic" or analytic, and "empathetic" or relational, for 'male' and 'female.' Now the book's research makes perfect sense. It's not that men don't relate, or that women don't analyze. Though we do know people who fit those descriptions, some of them switch those gender designations! Even the author doesn't propose some artificial division between sexual tendencies. It's more like an 'essential' starting point to understand the sexes. Perhaps what's missing is the relationship between analysis and relation in the brain (or 'IQ' and 'Emotional Intelligence' in the mind). (The author thus is too analytical, too 'male'!) Is it like yin and yang (we all have both *sexual* tendencies in our body, but in different proportions)? Is one tendency especially useful to the real-world work of one sex? How about the other one? Can culture exaggerate one characteristic? Can education remedy an imbalance? (The answer is 'yes.') This debate loses utility when it gets construed as 'nature vs. nurture,' genetics vs. culture. Neither would matter without the human agent who chooses which words to use or to criticize, or how to analyze the problem and how to build consensus.
Rating:
Summary: Slightly disappointing
Review: What this book says about male and female brains is mostly right, and should be unsurprising. I didn't learn much from it.
He makes a good case that some of the features of autism are more typical of the male brain than of the female brain. But he doesn't convince me that this has much significance. I am bothered that he refers to autism as extreme maleness, when there appear to be a number features on which extreme maleness and degree of autism have little correlation (e.g. risk tolerance).
The AQ test that he includes at the end looks like it leaves plenty of room for improvement (for instance, I'm annoyed that it offers four choices for each response, but scores the results as if there were only two choices), but it still seems to be the best readily available test of its kind.
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